* Privilege
> “One obvious answer would be “privilege”. It’s not completely wrong; once the first talented individual makes a family rich and famous, it has a big leg up.”
But this answer isn’t politically viable for him so he glosses over it.
* Genetics
> “The other obvious answer is “genetics!” I think this one is right, but there are some mysteries here that make it less of a slam dunk.”
He spends a lot of time trying to make this one work but of course it has all the well-known problems that all the eugenicists of the past ran into (e.g., assortative mating doesn’t completely explain Ashkenazi Jews).
* Education
> “Overall I’m not sure I can find any commonalities in these families’ educational styles except that they were all pretty weird.”
* Yudkowsky’s “Hero License”
> “. . .which I have no evidence for.”
This seems like a wild assertion to make, and here's something by Scott Alexander that points in the other direction:
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/secrets-of-the-great-f...